Gamera 2 : L'Attaque de la Légion

...at least IMNSHO. It was high time someone thought up an insect kaiju that could be tough,scary,and interesting(Kumonga,Mothra and Kamacuras? Give me a break.Only Megaguirus came close to being interesting.) There was so much to like about this movie-intelligent dialog(even after the dubbing),great fight scenes,and the fact that the emphasis was placed on the monsters,and not the actors. No silly new "ultimate monster fighting weapon that gets trashed in 30 seconds"-just get those idiots from the JSDF out of the way,and let Gamera take care of business.But the big G had his hands full here-the Legion swarm were bad enough,but the mother creature was awesome,and didn't roll over when she got hurt. The mandible blasts were great,but those red "whip" beams that went right thru Gamera were awesome. I even liked the Legion's voice-it sounded like a rusty gate opening! Gamera was incredible,and that fireball slide trick he did was the bomb. With a new Gamera movie coming out next year,and Toho making it plain from the ending of Godzilla:Final Wars that they have no intention of waiting 5-10 years for a new Godzilla movie,I,along with many other kaiju fans,demand that Toho and Deiei quit fooling around,and make the deal-Godzilla vs.Gamera.What else is left?

Now this is what I call an excellent giant monster film. There's a plot: which concerns an invasion by alien insects who wish to turn Japan into a nest so they can spread their colonies all over. There are characters that are well-defined and interesting. There is suspense. There are realistic special FX, cool-looking monsters, and brutal kaiju battles. This film expertly shows Japan in panic and the effects of a kaiju on the country. It's also good to show how the military handles the situation. This film far surpasses the first movie in the series. Legion was a far more formidable villain than Gyaos. There are many classic scenes, including Legion's demise, Gamera getting covered with insects, and the destruction of Sendai. This can be either a great introduction to the genre or one of the quintessential giant monster films. Great fun throughout.

For years now, all I've had was the original Japanese language version, without subtitles, thinking this is the best giant monster film to ever come along. Now, after seeing it subtitled, I believe it's easily the best of the 3 new Gamera films. The situations involving people, are well integrated with the story, and kept in proximity to the action. Legion, the giant insect-like crustacean, is the best monster ever to come out of Japan. It's also one of the most articulated creatures ever designed. The icing on the eiga, is the great CGI effects, like the animated lasers Legion emits, and Gamera's fire-balls. Suspension of disbelief is not a problem. The most amazing thing is, that they were able to take what was ludicrous camp in the extreme, and succeeded in making it respectable art. You'll believe a giant prehistoric saber-toothed fire-breathing turtle, CAN fly !

I must say, I picked this one up expecting it to be just another Japanese rubber suit monster movie and thought it might be a bit of a laugh in that 'so bad its good' type of way. I was surprised however to find a very decent film which kept me engaged from the beginning, with a logical and 'plausible' storyline (if you can suspend disbelief when it comes to pre-historic flying turtles stomping their way through miniature cities etc.) and a decent script. The special effects are also pretty good, even though the main protagonists are of the 'men in rubber suits' variety. The only problem is, I'm now going to have to go and hunt down the other 2 installments! I've watched many worse Hollywood films recently and would recommend this to anyone who likes a good 'creature feature'.

The second part of the new gamera-series offers the same advantages of the first movie only with improved quality. The design of legion is well done offering a mean, foreign but interesting looking villain that threatens earth (especially Japanese cities :) The story is convincing, revealing the nature of legion step by step (meaning the film is very interesting even if there are humans instead of monsters on screen, which is, in my opinion is very important to a film based on special effects).

An amazingly well done film you'll surely want to watch more than only one time.